Gottlieb's Black Hole is LOADED with cool stuff all over the place that makes it not only fun, but exciting to play!

TWO PLAYFIELDS

The most obvious feature, and invoative, is the fact that it has 2 playfields. You can see the lower playfield through the blue window in the upper playfield. When the ball enters the Gravity Tunnel, the lower playfield will light up so you can see it better. Went the ball drains down below, it will Re-Enter to the upper playfield. This is probably the coolest thing about this machine.

MULTI-BALL

Black Hole has a Multi-Ball feature that will allow the play to have 3 balls in play at once time. In order to have a Multi-Ball event, you have to capture a ball in both the upper and lower capture holes. Each time a ball is captures, the machine will serve up another ball to launch. When the third ball enters the Gravity Tunnel and goes down to the lower playfield, the lower captive ball will be released, so you now have two balls playing on the lower playfield. When both of these balls drain, they will be kicked back up to the upper playfield. Then if you've enabled Re-Entry, they will be directed onto the upper playfield and the upper captive ball will also be released, and you'll have all three balls in play. If Re-Entry is not enabled, the two lower balls will drain, then the upper captive ball will be released for singal-ball play.

UPPER CAPTIVE HOLE

There is a captive hole on the upper playfield. Normally it is not captive, but once enabled by hitting all the yellow targets, it remains lit for the rest of the game. The targets reset after each ball. Even though it stays lit, the captive ball will be ejected whenever the ball in play drains. The best thing to do is hit all the yellow targets as soon as possible in order to engage the captive hole. This is the first thing I try to do.

LOWER CAPTIVE HOLE

There is a captive hole on the lower playfield too. It is always lit and once it captures a ball, it keeps it until Multi-Ball occurs.

RE-ENTRY

When a ball drains from the lower playfield, it will be kicked back up to the upper playfield via a plastic tube. If Re-Entry is enabled (left picture above), the gate will be closed and the ball will be directed back into play. If Re-Entry is disabled (right picture above), the ball will be directed into the outlane and will drain. The gate is activated by either a flashing lane, or by clearing either lower playfield drop target banks. Once a ball has re-entered, you'll have to re-enable the gate again should it enter the Gravity Tunnel.

BONUS

Bonus is scored as all the points earned while the ball is in play in the lower playfield and is awarded when the ball drains from the upper playfield. You can earn up to 5 bouns multipliers by either dropping though the top lanes and turning off all 3 red lights, or by shooting the ball through the bouns multiplier loop in the lower playfield. The display at the bottom of the playfield window shows the current bonus.

Bonus Display

FLIPPERS

There are four flippers on the upper playfield and two on the lower

POP BUMPERS

There are 4 pop bumpers on the upper playfield and two on the lower. The upper playfield pop bumpers are quite strong, and one is cleverly located near the left outlane. The two down below are a little weaker due to the small size of the playfield.

DROP TARGETS

There are two banks of drop targets on the upper playfield. The bank on the left has 5 targets and spells out "B-L-A-C-K". The bank on the right has 4 targets and spells out "H-O-L-E". Clearing the left bank lights the Gravity Tunnel spinner for higher points, and clearing the right bank lighs the right alley for higher points. Clearing both banks will light the lower playfield special.

If you light all the orange arrows on one upper bank, one of the Gravity Accelerators on the lower playfield will light. If you light all the orange arrows on the second bank, the second Gravity Accelerator on the lower playfield will light. Orange arrows are lit by hitting the target that has the blinking orange arrow. When hit, the arrow becomes lit and the next arrow will blink.

There are two banks of drop targets on the lower playfield too, one bank of 3 targets and another bank of 4. Clearing either bank will open the Re-Entry gate. Clearing both banks will advance the score of the upper playfield top lane from 10,000 points, to Free Ball, to Special. The photo above was taken of the lower playfield, but looking from the flippers instead of the view that the player would have.

GRAVITY ACCELERATORS

Gravity Accelerators are used to double or triple all scoring on the lower playfield. When you get all the orange arrows lit on one bank of upper playfield drop targets, you'll light one Gravity Accelerator for 2x lower playfield scoring. When you get the second set of orange arrows all lit, you'll light the 2nd Gravity Accelerator for 3x lower playfield scoring. When one Accelerator is lit, it remains lit from ball to ball. When both Accelerators are lit, they will go out (reset) when the current ball drains.

KICKING TARGET

There is a kicking target on the lower playfield. Hitting the target causes the target to kick and shoot the ball across the playfield.

KICKING RUBBER

The single slingshot is not active, but there are two kicking rubber strips, one on each side in the middle of the upper playfield. These add a lot of excitement to the play by shooting the ball across the playfield very fast. In combination with the upper pop bumpers, the ball can really fly at times.

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